The present invention relates to a tubular varistor arrangement, and, more particularly, to a varistor arrangement suitable for use in an electrical connector of circular cross-section.
Presently-available electrical connectors that are circular in cross-section are typically restricted in the wall thickness of tubular electrical circuit elements which can be integrated into the connectors. This is a result of the considerable capital costs associated with design and acquisition of the various machine tools required to produce a circular connector. Various power and signal level electrical systems incorporating circular connectors, however, require respective varistor breakdown voltages that are incompatible with tubular varistors of presently-available compositions subject to a typical restriction on tubular wall thickness. This is because varistor breakdown voltage varies according to the thickness of varistor material between a pair of spaced electrodes. While it would be possible to comply with the foregoing tubular wall thickness-restriction by formulating varistor compositions of desired breakdown voltage for a specified wall thickness, it would be desirable to utilize presently-available varistor compositions, since these have been exhaustively optimized in regard to a comprehensive range of performance parameters.